Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-06-09
WOMEN IN BUSINESS.
Girls Rendered More Self-Reliant by Daily
association With Men.

Girls Rendered More Self-Reliant by Daily
association With Men.
The revolution in the relationship of
working women to business has become
so general, writes the New York CORE
spondent of the Philadelphia Press, that
thousands of women who, less than ten
years ago would have been obliged to
work in factories, as household servants
or with their needles, are now filling the
places of clerks, secretaries, stenogra-
piers, type-writers and even Office errand
girls in the downtown establishments,
side by side with men. No one who comes
to New York can fail to notice it. Women
are to be seen in great majority of the
large counting rooms and general offices,
and one runs across them in the chambers
of lawyers, and even in those smallest
business places wherein one man con-
ducts an agency or consulting room, and
the girl he employs is alone with him a
great part of the time. New avenues are
thus opened to thousands upon thousands
of women to an extent that may, without
exaggeration, be said to have created a
revolution in the opportunities and sur
roundiags of the sex. That this change
in her relationship to men, whereby she
works with him all day six days in the
week, must effect the sex and be felt by
society, it needs no reflection for any one
to perceive.
In the operating-room of the Western
Union Telegraph Company, at dizzy
height above the roofs and many of the
towers of the city, 700 men and women,
mainly between the age of eighteen and
thirty-fve, manipulate the electric ma
chimes that scatter and receive the electric
correspondence of the metropolis. For
several years women have been employed
side by side with men in this great work
room, and as the sexes have never been
divided, but almost every girl and woman
has been brought one time or another to
the side of almost every man, this is a
splendid vantage point of studying the
problem presented by this new phase of
city life.
The questions that it was necessary to
ask / first put to Mr.. William j. Dealey,
the manager.
''Has it been yonr experience" [ in
quired, "that ladies in business lose their
feminine ambition to marry and keep
house? Do they marry in any less pro-
portion in business then they do from
the homes on the land?"
''My experience said Mr.. Dealey, sis
that ladies in business become to certain
extent independent, consequently more
selfreliant, naturally more exacting,
more critical, less sentimental, better able
generally to take care eff themselves, and
that their marriages are more wisely
planned and result In a greater average
of happiness than if they mad less means
of observation. My experience is that
there are more marriages between people
in the same business in the ssme Office
than there would be between the same
number of men and women if not so
closely associated in business. Their
judgement in the choice Of life partners
is excellent, simply because of their ex-
perience. The boys see many kinds of
girls, and the the girls an equal variety
of boys, and they learn to compare the
qualities of those around them.''
"Then business does not rob a woman
of feminine qualities; she still wants to be
wife and fulfill her natural part in life?"
[ inquired.
"Yes."
care lady operators in this office rob-
bed Of their graces and charms by the
discipline of business?"
mo, on the contrary they add to their
charm by being constantly on their dig
nifty, which is a necessary outcome of dis
cipline. Women in business lead two
lives, one business life and the other a
social life. The training of their business
life makes them practical, economical
and far-seeing in social life. The major
ity of them perhaps it may be said that
all of them have dependents upon them
at home, and the sense of responsibility
thus developed necessarily makes
them good housekeepers and good man
ayers"
'You have had long experience here
in room where two hundred ladies and
five hundred men are together every day;
has it been your experience that this con-
tact has eyer caused any scandal, or would
cause you to advise parents to keep
their daughters out of business?"
''Nc," Mr.. Dealey replied;'I have never
know of anything shat had the shadow
of scandal arising from any such contact,
and instead of advising parents not
to send their daughters to business, I
know of no better school for those daugh-
ers."
Really, view of the seven hundred
operators at their work was in itself an
| answer to many Of the questions one de-
sired to ask on this subject. The girls
| and women were singularly feminine in
all their ways. No attempt at beautifca-
ton had been missed. They were come
ly lot of young women, and not only were
| their faces soft and plump and rosy and
| their coiffures modish, but they wore all
those little destinations in the shape of
| bows and ribbons and rings and elabor-
| ately draped garments, which every prop
| erly constituted member of the sex so
dotes upon. Their rounded forms gave
no testimony against the healthfulness of
| their business. Wherever girl was for
| a moment unoccupied with business she
took up knitting, embroidery, crochettjng
or newspaper. 1t is said that the talk
of these girls among themselves is usu-
ally practical, sensible and upon serious
topics. The most interesting thing OBJ
served there was the practical turn of